"Think about it. There’s a significant chance that failing to raise the debt limit could provoke a renewed financial crisis — and Republicans would rather take that chance than allow a reduction in tax breaks on corporate jets.

What this says to me is that Obama cannot, must not, concede here. If he does, he’s signaling that the GOP can extract even the most outrageous demands; he’s setting himself up for endless blackmail. A line has to be drawn somewhere; it should have been drawn last fall; but to concede now would effectively mean the end of the presidency."

"So basically, the Republicans keep saying 'no' and the White House keeps offering them more and more cuts to programs, and fewer and fewer tax increases, while the Republicans simply keep saying 'no.'

Heck of a negotiation. The White House is simply negotiating with itself at this point. Lowering its bid, lower and lower, while the GOP does nothing. Guaranteeing that any final deal that is reached starts at a point so low that we're screwed no matter what the details.

Now, I'm sure the White House thinks it's going to win the battle by showing the American people how earnest the President has been in these talks, while the Republicans have been intransigent. Yeah, fat chance. That is all a matter of spin. And the White House folks, and Dems generally, don't spin very well. They need to hire someone who does, and empower them to win, rather than tying their hands in a never-ending desire to be nice to people who want to destroy you."

"For Hoenig though, the choice is clear when it comes to what to do with the financial institutions that caused the most punishing downturn since the Great Depression: break them up into pieces that regulators can understand and provide a backstop to entities engaged in the so-called real economy -- but allow those dabbling in more risk-laden activities to fail.

The Obama administration and Congress chose the alternate route in passing the Dodd-Frank financial regulation law. To Hoenig, they made a mistake.

'Following this financial crisis, Congress and the administration turned to the work of repair and reform,' he said during a Monday speech in Washington. 'Once again, the American public got the standard remedies -- more and increasingly complex regulation and supervision.'

'The Dodd-Frank reforms have all been introduced before, but financial markets skirted them,' he continued. 'Supervisory authority existed, but it was used lightly because of political pressure and the misperceptions that free markets, with generous public support, could self-regulate.'"